Thursday, July 30, 2009

We visited the Minimum Security Daycare Facility again. Mom and Dad attended a boring meeting, I got to try yet another new place to eat, and then we went to hang out with a nice lady who'll be my warden when I start my stint in the fall. So far there's only one other inmate, but I'll have to share Maria with a total of 5 others by the time I get there. I'm not worried, though, 'cause I'm the cutest.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

After a visit to the pediatrician, I've started taking medicine for acid reflux, in the hopes that it'll help me feel better and eat more comfortably. Everybody thinks I have heartburn because I'm a baby, with an immature digestive system. In fact it's because my hostile takeover of the Crimson Permanent Assurance isn't going as smoothly as I'd like.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Great Uncle Mike (he insists there's no hyphen) is visiting, so we took the train up to San Francisco for another Giants game. I don't know what their record is, but they need to invite me to more games: I'm undefeated.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The neurosurgeon says my surgery should be when I'm 6 to 12 months old, so sometime between November and April. Mom and Dad are planning to put it off until at least January so we can visit family for the holidays. If I'm still on the small side then, it might get delayed a little longer. So I've got a while to continue making the parents lose sleep with my yelling, rather than with worry.

Today I started wearing size 1. They're a little droopy, but I think of it as my own nod to hip-hop fashion. I'm back to wearing them folded over in front and with the tabs meeting in the middle, too. It makes me nostalgic for Day 0, twelve long weeks ago.

Oddly, there are three sizes smaller than 1. Even more oddly, they're not called -2 through 0. How does anyone hope to raise a mathematician this way?

Mom had to go in to work for a very serious, important meeting at someplace called "Santa Cruz Boardwalk". "Keep your noses clean," she admonished as she chucked her sunscreen into the car and peeled out of the driveway.

Dad took me down to the library for baby sit-and-sing. Who knew there were so many babies in Santa Clara? We met Amelia, Chloe, Taylor, Henry, and Other Chloe. Dads, on the other hand, are scarce: moms outnumber them by at least 10 to 1. I can't rule out sample bias, though. It may be that dads are scared of libraries. Mine was sure wide-eyed.

After the library, we went to lunch at Plastic Heaven. Rebecca wanted to play in the multi-story climbing structure, but the noisy big kids were intimidating and I can't fight off more than three at a time. Instead I conversed with a sweet little granny who spoke only Portuguese. Babies are naturally polyglot.

After that we went for ice cream.

These activities must be detrimental to nasal hygiene, because Dad and Rebecca gave me a bath in the sink when we got home. Rebecca sprayed water in my face; I'd hold a grudge, but my hands don't work that well yet. So instead, I filled my diaper with a 180-degree wraparound poop. Or maybe that's just cause and effect, like how washing your car makes it rain. In any event, Dad got me cleaned up, so Mom will never know.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

For the sake of simplicity, I'll be blunt: sometimes a girl needs to fart. I woke up for my 2 AM feeding last night and felt that unmistakable pressure in my lower regions. A quick snack didn't help, so I raised the alarm (and the rafters) and got both Mom and Dad on the job.

Dad burped me (hah, nice try!) and changed my diaper, then everybody spent a while watching me kick my legs and yell. Finally I managed to pass the gas, so it was playtime! What? You're both already up, why don't you want to play?

The ol' fuddy-duddies swaddled me back up and put me in my bed, and then Mom sang to me. It took a virus in the bacterium on the hair on the leg on the mite on the wing on the flea on the fly on the frog on the bump on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea, but finally I fell asleep around 3:30.

And then I got hiccups.

I got back to sleep a little before 4:00, in plenty of time to wake up at 6:00 for my next feeding. How come Mom and Dad looked so out of it this morning?

Monday, July 13, 2009

The neurosurgeon we saw today cleared up a lot of the confusion with my MRI results. Hard to say he had good news, but when all the news is bad, less bad looks pretty good.

I have a spinal lipoma. This is a rare condition (roughly 1 in 17,000 babies) in which a lump of fatty tissue develops inside the spinal column, usually (as in my case) down at the base, and sticks to the spinal cord. Left untreated, this causes big problems as the child grows and the nerves are damaged from the unnatural stretching.

So in a few months, I'll be having surgery. They'll open up my spine, scrape away the lipoma, and tuck everything back into a new tube with more room. With luck, that'll fix everything for good.

Incidentally, while I was there they measured me at 8 lb 10 oz and 22" long. At first they thought I was only 21.25", but Mom bought me another 3/4 of an inch by pointing out that I'd been measured at 21.75" two weeks ago. I can understand variation from one scale to another, but rulers?

Friday, July 10, 2009

This is what happens when we have actual timely news before Mom or Dad gets around to importing the photos from the cameras: we have to write a post out of sequence, so our loyal readers don't miss it. So pretend this was written last week.

The whole gang went to the Santa Clara city picnic for the Fourth of July. I had milk. Everybody else ate stuff you have to chew. Then we all hung out in the park for a while.

Mostly this is an excuse to post yet another photo. You might think I'm smiling, but I maintain it was just the sun in my eyes.

I learned a lot about hernias in the class and office visit, but the most important thing was: I don't have one! At least, not one that the surgeon wanted to do anything about. "An MRI isn't how you find a hernia," she said. "It's way too sensitive." If you can't see or feel anything from the outside, it's not worth worrying about. Since nothing has shown up yet, chances are it won't until I'm at least 4 or 5 years old — if at all. So we'll just watch and wait.

Surprisingly, the only other patient in the class was also a girl. She was born two days after me, but she was a preemie, and is still only a little over 5 lb. She's tiny! I refuse to believe that I was that small a mere 10 weeks ago.

In an hour or so, we'll be going to a class so I can learn about hernias. Since they're so much more common in baby boys than girls, Mom dressed me in a frilly pink outfit to head off any confusion. If you know Mom, you know what a capitulation that was.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

What's in its pockets, my precious? Lint! It has lint in its pockets. But what does it do when it has no pockets? My precious, it makes pockets in its hands! When it clenches its greedy hobbit fists all the time, it makes pockets in the webbing between its thumbs and forefingers and they collects lint!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The pediatrician gave us preliminary MRI results. It turns out that there's something funny going on with my lower spine, but I have to see a pediatric neurologist to find out more. Meanwhile, I'll keep kicking Mom in the chest while I eat, to reassure her that I can move my legs well.

The MRI also turned up a small hernia. We'll be seeing a pediatric surgeon about that. Hernias are about 10 times as common in baby boys as in girls. Between that and all the hand-me-down blue onesies I wear, nobody's going to believe I'm a girl.

At my two-month visit to the pediatrician this afternoon, I measured 8 lb 6 oz and 21.75" long. I'm slowly catching up to the normal growth curve, after generously giving all the other babies a 3-week head start.

It's vaccination time! I was scheduled for three injections and one oral dose, but Mom and Dad decided to split up the shots, so I only got two, one in each leg. Mom says she'll bring me back next week for the other two vaccinations, but I'm planning to hide the car keys at the bottom of my toy basket. Don't tell!